The field of the invention is moulded shower enclosures and more particularly, combined shower enclosures and drain pans which include a seat.
Shower enclosures are commonly moulded from acrylic or other suitable material as a one piece shell. The shell includes side walls and a bottom emptying into a drain, and in may cases also includes an integral seating surface moulded into a side wall or into a corner between two side walls.
It is also known in the prior art to provide a capability to close the drain and fill a bottom portion of the enclosure with water for the purpose of soaking a user's feet. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,589,281 shows a combined shower bath, foot bath and bidet, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,096,526 shows a foot bath insert for use in a shower.
Conventional whirlpool apparatus may be included with a foot bath configuration to implement a foot whirlpool. However, when a whirlpool apparatus is included, such apparatus must be made accessible for maintenance, adjustment and repair. The most common method utilized for providing access to the whirlpool mechanism is to cut an access opening through a wall adjacent to the shower enclosure into an adjacent closet, crawl space, or other unobtrusive area. In that way, access to the whirlpool mechanism is obtained from outside of the shower enclosure, thereby allowing the shower enclosure to remain a one piece, sealed shell. Depending upon a particular room layout, however, such access may not be possible, for example, if the walls adjacent to the shower enclosure are exterior walls, or more commonly, if the presence of the access opening in the area on the opposite side of the adjacent wall would be aesthetically objectionable.
Other types of combination foot whirlpool/shower enclosures are known in which an outside wall of the enclosure, is open to the room containing the shower enclosure, with the outside wall being fitted with a removable panel for access to the whirlpool apparatus. This arrangement also enables the interior shell for the shower to be a one piece, sealed enclosure. However, it does impose limitations on the placement of the enclosure, e.g. that the removable panel be open to the room interior and be large enough to provide easy access. The above limitations require that a fairly large area, i.e. the whirlpool apparatus and removable panel, be placed adjacent the room interior, where it detracts from the the available area for entrance to the shower enclosure and otherwise limits design possibilities with respect to the esthetic appearance of the shower enclosure. For example, this arrangement would not be feasible in a three walled, alcove installation where only a front wall is available for shower entrance (e.g. the removable panel would present a sizable obstruction to that entrance).